THE NEW YORKER they huddle in the hall by the bathroom door. "You're not enjoying yourself?" Orla asks, and Karen is startled to see that she is serious. "Most of them are our friends," she adds. "Ex- cept for your principal and that shadow he calls a wife." Karen smiles, her first genuine smile of the night. "And the serving girls," she says, then corrects herself. "Wom- en. Serving women." The bathroom door opens as she is speak- ing, and the sixteen- year-old black girl steps out, eying Karen. She gives a little snort, as if to say, "I should have known.' , "Christ," Karen says to Or la as the girl walks off. "In novels, they al- ways say 'serving girls'; I didn't mean anything racial by it." "Racial?" Orla says, "I t sounded more sexist to me." She laughs then. "You're strung tight as a violin." "I think I'm going crazy. I think I've been crazy ever since we got stuck in that ravine." "I know what you mean," Orla says vaguely, and Karen hopes she will continue, but a man appears down the hall, headed for the bathroom. Orla slips inside first, without saying any- thing more. , :-- - \.., B EFORE the party is over, Karen has shepherded the only black guest-a middle-aged man who teaches chemistry at the community college and whom Karen hardly knows-into the kitchen and then the living room and hall, putting her hand on his shoul- der, trying to find the black girl, as if to prove something. The two women are bartending, but the girl cannot be found. I t occurs to Karen that she herself is no different from anyone else here-as narrow and foolish. This depresses her. She wants Lawrence now, and leaves the chemistry professor to search for him. ,,- 55 , - , "',", "'\ 1 \ /} ( .' , , "'\ J rJ ( -f" tL -::> /:7 ?\r; I . .. XI - ' ,). t I j " I. ; ') r:::., \ , '- :- ) \ " ':' ' n '. \\ - '- r:, ){ J O............... 't \ ) - -- ... , ," \ " , '\ I !I: \ \... ( r '\ :ir ^ "^" r ",: oK .:'.: :;; . +. r C"".". (/ ? c9 I I o ,,' l !).: I -/1.-- I I :-:. " ", ",,'r -- " : ., r: J; , "" M> ""It ,.. > , \. ',J fJ r ., I ,} , J> 1-: JJ., J j " ' Þ'\ c ',' ,{ ,p.'" r ... , , " -- ." r--->t/ .3) bI "I don't know what went wrong." . She finds her husband on the couch, talking. As Karen nears, she sees through the crowd that he is convers- ing with the black girl, who is nodding at him and says, "I know the brother. He act like he the best thing on two feet " "I wanted to blame the family, you see? Here they are, could be victims of a tragedy, and I wanted to make them responsible. " The girl adjusts her tube top, pull- ing up each side. "If the family is all like him, they are a sorry bunch. They are. You don't got to feel worser than they do." Karen examines Lawrence then. He looks bereaved, as if the missing boy belonged to him and were never found. He suddenly excuses himself and crosses the room. Karen hears the door to their bedroom open and close. He will shove purses and raincoats to one side of the bed and stretch out on the other. For Lawrence, the party is over. "He takes things hard," the girl explains to Karen, as if Lawrence were her friend and Karen the stranger. "He . feels bad for every little thing he thinks. " "Does he?" Karen asks her. But now the girl only shrugs. "He's your husband." F OR Karen, the party does not end until after three in the morning. All the guests are finally gone. Even Orla, who spent the evening talking to one man and then another, gave it up an hour earlier. Paying the serving- women-without deducting for the wine-Karen tries to apologize. "I hope this wasn't too awful," she says. They only nod, not in agreement but in acknowledgment of her half apol- ogy. This angers Karen, as they were the ones who were late and who made a scene. The women wake the girl, who is asleep on the couch, and they shut the door silently when they leave Be- fore their car pulls away, one of them yells, "Bitch!" Exhausted, Karen cannot sleep. The restlessness is stronger now than ever. Sbe hated the party-every moment but the few she spent alone with Orla. And now she decides that she wants